U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,781 discloses a load lifting cylinder having a lateral hole 119, which communicates with a bore 106 of a piston element 105, see FIGS. 4-6. A piston rod 107 is coupled to the piston element 105. The '781 patent teaches in column 8, lines 23-34: “When the piston element 105 approaches the uppermost position, and the lateral hole 119 is closed by the rod guide 116, the working fluid in the upper cylinder chamber 104B is permitted to leak out of the chamber 104B into the bottom cylinder chamber 104A only via the small hole 118. That is, the flow rate is extremely limited, due to the closure of the lateral hole 119. As a result, the piston speed is decelerated by the resistance caused by the limited flow of the working fluid. Therefore, the piston element 105 reaches the uppermost position determined by the rod guide 117 at a sufficiently reduced speed without the occurrence of shock.” The '781 patent further teaches in column 9, lines 20-26: “it should be noted that if the opening ends of the lateral hole 119 are vertically extended in a longitudinal direction of the piston rod 107, it is possible to delicately control the speed of the piston movement when the piston element 105 approaches or moves away from the uppermost position thereof.”